Breaking the language barrier

This ESL class in middle school has written a story about their school and translated and recited it in many different languages onto a DVD. It will be given to new students and should help them feel better in their new school and community. DP

By Dena Pauling

centredaily.com: BELLEFONTE — Eyad Ghoname, 12, scooted close to the microphone and recited a narrative he helped write about Bellefonte Area Middle School.

Like many of the students in Bellefonte’s English as a Second Language program, Ghoname, a sixth-grader, moved to the area in recent years and is learning more English. But he isn’t forgetting Arabic, his native language. In fact, for this project, his teacher makes use of it.

As his peers listened inside the studio last week, Ghoname translated a DVD into Arabic. Then other students took their turn at the microphone, recording voiceovers in Chinese, Punjabi, Russian and Spanish.

“The more we educate our community about how much diversity can do for our community, the better we are,” said Wanda Garbrick, Bellefonte’s middle and high school ESL teacher. “This is our way to reach out from the kids’ point of view.”

Over the past several months, Ghoname and his peers in the ESL program have been assembling DVDs to help introduce new families to the middle school. The film explains how busing works, what rules must be followed and the types of extracurricular activities available to students.

The many languages in which it is being recorded is a sign of just how diverse this rural community is becoming. Across the state, schools are teaching an increasing number of students with limited English proficiency — the state estimated 43,000 students across the state speak one of 175 different languages.

The DVD is one of the ways Bellefonte is reaching out to new students.

“Depending on who comes in, we will give them a DVD in the language they speak,” said Mike Winger, 17, one of three high school technology students who helped the ESL class make the film.
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